File size limits

Q. Does Windows XP, or the NTFS file system, have some kind of file size limitation? I’ve been having trouble saving big video files to my hard drive. I have plenty of room on my hard drive. Someone told me XP has a limit but I can turn it off. How?

A. For all intents and purposes, XP (as well as Vista) and the NTFS file system does not have a file size limitation. That is to say, it would be highly unlikely that the average user would reach the limitation. For the record NTFS (the file system used by XP and Vista) will support file sizes (in theory) of up to 2^64 bytes (16 exabytes or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes).

It is possible that you’re using XP with a FAT32 file system. This could happen if you upgraded from Windows 95/98 or made the choice when installing XP. If that’s the case then you could be running up against the 4 gig limitation of this file system.

To determine if you are using an NTFS file system simply open a DOS prompt and type chkdsk and hit enter. The resulting text will tell you if your files system is FAT32 or NTFS.

If you are using NTFS already then you are probably encountering a size barrier imposed by your software application or by the capture hardware. Check with the vendor to verify.